Placeholders

Use loading placeholders for your components or pages to indicate something may still be loading.

On this page

About

Placeholders can be used to enhance the experience of your application. They're built only with HTML and CSS, meaning you don't need any JavaScript to create them. You will, however, need some custom JavaScript to toggle their visibility. Their appearance, color, and sizing can be easily customized with our utility classes.

Example

In the example below, we take a typical card component and recreate it with placeholders applied to create a "loading card". Size and proportions are the same between the two.

Card title

Some quick example text to build on the card title and make up the bulk of the card's content.

Go somewhere

vue

<template>
  <Row gutter="4">
    <Col>
      <Card>
        <CardImgTop
          src="https://dummyimage.com/100x100/20c997/20c997"
          height="180"
        />
        <CardBody>
          <CardTitle>Card title</CardTitle>
          <CardText>
            Some quick example text to build on the card title and make up the
            bulk of the card's content.
          </CardText>
          <b-a
            href="#"
            tabindex="-1"
            button="primary"
            col="6"
          >
            Go somewhere
          </b-a>
        </CardBody>
      </Card>
    </Col>

    <Col>
      <Card>
        <CardImgTop
          src="https://dummyimage.com/100x100/868e96/868e96"
          height="180"
        />
        <CardBody>
          <CardTitle placeholder="glow">
            <b-span
              placeholder
              col="6"
            />
          </CardTitle>
          <CardText placeholder="glow">
            <b-span
              placeholder
              col="7"
            />
            <b-span
              placeholder
              col="4"
            />
            <b-span
              placeholder
              col="4"
            />
            <b-span
              placeholder
              col="6"
            />
            <b-span
              placeholder
              col="8"
            />
          </CardText>
          <b-a
            href="#"
            tabindex="-1"
            button="primary"
            disabled
            placeholder
            col="6"
          />
        </CardBody>
      </Card>
    </Col>
  </Row>
</template>

How it works

Create placeholders with the placeholder attribute and a grid column attribute (e.g., col="6") to set the width. They can replace the text inside an element or be added as a modifier class to an existing component.

We apply additional styling to button attributes via ::before to ensure the height is respected. You may extend this pattern for other situations as needed, or add a within the element to reflect the height when actual text is rendered in its place.

vue

<template>
  <b-p
    placeholder
    col="6"
  />
  <br>
  <b-a
    href="#"
    tabindex="-1"
    button="primary"
    disabled
    placeholder
    col="4"
  />
</template>

tip

The use of aria-hidden="true" only indicates that the element should be hidden to screen readers. The loading behavior of the placeholder depends on how authors will actually use the placeholder styles, how they plan to update things, etc. Some JavaScript code may be needed to swap the state of the placeholder and inform AT users of the update.

Width

You can change the width through grid column classes, width utilities, or inline styles.

vue

<template>
  <b-span
    placeholder
    col="6"
  />
  <b-span
    placeholder
    relative-width="75"
  />
  <b-span
    placeholder
    style="width: 25%"
  />
</template>

Color

By default, the placeholder uses currentColor. This can be overridden with a custom color or utility class.

vue

<template>
  <b-span
    placeholder
    col="12"
  />
  <b-span
    placeholder
    col="12"
    background-color="primary"
  />
  <b-span
    placeholder
    col="12"
    background-color="secondary"
  />
  <b-span
    placeholder
    col="12"
    background-color="success"
  />
  <b-span
    placeholder
    col="12"
    background-color="danger"
  />
  <b-span
    placeholder
    col="12"
    background-color="warning"
  />
  <b-span
    placeholder
    col="12"
    background-color="info"
  />
  <b-span
    placeholder
    col="12"
    background-color="light"
  />
  <b-span
    placeholder
    col="12"
    background-color="dark"
  />
</template>

Animation

Animate placeholders with placeholder="glow" or placeholder="wave" to better convey the perception of something being actively loaded.

vue

<template>
  <b-p placeholder="glow">
    <b-span
      placeholder
      col="12"
    />
  </b-p>

  <b-p placeholder="wave">
    <b-span
      placeholder
      col="12"
    />
  </b-p>
</template>

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